Rejected Mate's Ascension

Chapter 2. The Dark Side of the Moon (Harold)

I should have hurried, because the night was falling, but I kept looking over my shoulder, slowing down. Julia must have lit a flashlight after I left, and the orange glow of her tent through the trees stirred different things in my chest.

Hope. Control. Warmth. The things I thought I had lost. This was exactly what I wanted when I turned to her. What I didn't expect was a nagging sensation at the back of my skull. That I was in the wrong, missing something big.

That I was a fool.

If I could clear the air by returning, I would, but Jules didn't want me in her private retreat. She kept repeating it: get lost, get out, leave me be. I'd go back—and she'd tear up our agreement. This possibility was like a hit in the gut, bad enough to stop me in my tracks.

No, losing her wasn't an option after a year of tittering on the brink of madness. For the first time since Scarlett abandoned me, I had a tether, something to grab on to while I crawled my way to the light. Jules was right, I should have turned to her sooner...

Maybe this was what nagging at me? That I wasted my time moping around? Sweat cooled on the nape of my neck as I stood in one spot in the night's chill. I turned a hundred-eighty degrees from Grauberg and the party.

A fool!

Blake and the Council installed me as a provisional Alpha merely hours ago. Sure, I resolved the biggest hurdle by recruiting Julia, yes. I had a thousand other things I had to plan for, to do or to think about, instead of standing on an icy ground and staring at a distant light... if I was an Alpha, not just a son of one with pretensions.

I clamped my teeth shut, turned hundred-eighty again—and startled, meeting a gaze of red eyes in the dark. A black shadow moved against the blacker backdrop of the forest, challenging my werewolf form's enhanced eyesight. Fortunately, my other senses were overclocked as well. There could be no doubt: I was waylaid by the wolf who had once guided me. He didn't show his muzzle since Scarlett broke me.

"So, you do know me from the frozen deer droppings," I said.

The wolf stared at me unblinking. We all communicate with our guiding wolves differently. All of us experience the natural unity through howling, but some could converse through scent, imagery and movement. For me, the bond so far was in the companionable silence and shared hunting until now. I could tell he was curious, and it plucked an unknown cord in my soul.

I crouched, wishing I had Luna Celeste's ability to talk to her guiding she-wolf in her mind as easily as she talked to us. Lacking this talent, I tried a telepathy of a different kind, imagining a trek South, the sunny woods of California I frequented with my former mate, and the promise of a destiny finally fulfilled.

The wolf tilted his head, then pointed his nose around me, to Julia's tent, and snorted. Steam that came out of his nostrils drifted and stretched into lines in the chilly air. My gaze followed, as if his breath was a directional arrow. I even turned my head that way. The wolf licked my neck with a rough tongue to keep me talking.

"Yes, she's coming with me," I stammered like I had a case of puppy love. "My new mate. But without actual mating. A friend-mate."

He gave me another lick, and, as clear as a spoken word, my mind caught onto his intentions. He was coming too, to seek a mate—a mate-mate—and start a pack in California. My task was to make the woods safe for the wolves from humans and fires.

"I'll do my best." My voice rang in the mountains even though I didn't raise it, and echoed the last word, best. A shiver passed through me: the Moon Goddess had heard me after turning a deaf ear for months. She had marked my promise as a vow.